Expert: Paul Henneman - 12/6/2011

Question
Help! and hello,
My son is 17 , intelligent and disinterested in school. I worry every day. He has $5000 for his first semester of college, I know he wont go. Is there books or software that you can recommend that will get him involved in at least investing that initial 5k. Thank you for sharing!!
Lisa

Answer
Lisa,
   Thank you for your question! I'm sorry to hear it. Particularly in a tough economy, education is everything.  There is so much news about high unemployment, but tell your son that people with a college degree are basically fully employed, virtually no unemployment. Those without a college degree have much higher unemployment, approaching 20% by some numbers. Those two groups of people average out to the approximately 8.6% unemployment rate we have now. Which group does he want to be in, no money, fighting every day for work, long stretches of no work? Or stable, well paying employement and career?  Here is a website with a graph showing how large the difference in unemployment rates is between those with a college degree and those without:
http://www.mybudget360.com/does-a-college-degree-protect-your-career-unemploymen
   $5,000 is a start, but without constant employment and a monthly contribution to the funds that are being investment, it will not do much long term. Without a college education he will almost certainly need to use those funds at some point just to pay the bills.
   However, all that said, he is only 17.  Teenagers have different priorities, and everything could change in the next 5 years.  All is hardly lost at this point, he has his whole life in front of him.
   That said, the book to start with is Investing for Dummies. It gives a good, well rounded background of the types of investments out there. It is definitely not an exciting read, and investing in general can be a very boring topic for someone without interest.  But, if he does take to it, that would provide a good start.  If he wants more to read, let me know and I will pass along some additional suggestions. I wish you the best.

Sincerely,
Paul Henneman
President
ValuEngine Inc
www.ValuEngine.com